1. Field of the Invention
The present general inventive concept relates to a thumbnail display method and an image forming apparatus. More particularly, the present general inventive concept relates to a thumbnail display method to provide a user with information regarding thumbnails stored in an XML paper specification (XPS) file, and an image forming apparatus to use the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
Image forming apparatuses generally print print data generated by terminal devices, such as computers, onto recording media. Examples of such image forming apparatuses include copiers, printers, facsimile machines or multifunction peripherals (MFPs) which combine functions of copiers, printers and facsimile machines in a single system.
Image forming apparatuses which have been widely used in recent years support a direct printing function to print document data, such as Portable Document Format (PDF) data, Tagged Image File Format (TIFF) data or Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) format data. Such a direct printing function enables direct printing by merely transmitting a file to an image forming apparatus without the need to launch an additional application program in a terminal device, such as a personal computer (PC), a personal digital assistant (PDA) or a digital camera.
The direct printing function is applicable to an XML paper specification (XPS) file. An XPS file has a fixed-layout electronic file format that preserves document formatting and can be shared, and is a zip-formatted file which includes all kinds of data and resources described by systematizing all resources required for documents or jobs in a directory structure and by writing the references therebetween in XML. Such an XPS file has a logical structure in the form of a tree having a plurality of levels, as illustrated in FIG. 1.
Referring to FIG. 1, an XPS file is represented with a job level, a document level and a page level located in a hierarchical branching structure. The document level includes a plurality of documents, and the page level includes a plurality of pages. Different print options may be set for each of the plurality of documents and for each of plurality of pages. Additionally, the XPS file contains thumbnails representing each of the plurality of documents and each of the plurality of pages.
However, a conventional image forming apparatus does not support a function of previewing thumbnails contained in an XPS file. Additionally, users can only view a thumbnail set as a default view in the XPS file. Therefore, there is a need for methods for users to selectively preview thumbnails they desire to view.